ABSTRACT
The term ‘chestnut’ is sometimes applied to areas of the language that people have very strong views on, such as: Should we ever split an infinitive? Why do people use due to when they mean owing to? Why have standards of pronunciation fallen? Why do people insist on using the word aggravate to mean ‘infuriate’? In most discussion of usage we can predict that difficulties will be raised in three major areas:
1 grammar (Which is correct: none of them is coming/none of them are coming?) 2 pronunciation (Should it be 'controversy or con’troversy ?) 3 words (Why do people insist on misusing unique to mean ‘rare’?) See: purist, split infinitive.
